September 2, 2018

It’s official. As of Tuesday, summer is over. Kids are back in school (some for a week already) and, as a result, the morning commute will be noticeably worse. For the Outreach Ministry, this means we will soon be restarting the weekend food Backpack Program. Late last school year, I met with several new schools to ask how we might be able to help ensure their kids receive the food they and their families need. I anticipate we will add one or two of them to our list of supported schools from last year. While I do not yet have a final count, I expect we will be providing backpacks to 6–8 schools this year. The other churches that we work with — St. Cecilia, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, and Sunset Presbyterian — have all recommitted as well. Collectively, we will be supporting well over a dozen schools with an excess of 400 backpacks each week.
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Over the summer, I also had the pleasure of working with another organization to deliver new refrigerators to Mountainside and Beaverton High Schools as well as Conestoga Middle School. All three will use these units to help expand their on-site pantry capabilities to now be able to include produce and dairy products. Some will use it to be able to have food like yogurt and fruit for kids who arrive at school hungry. We still have a lot of work to do before we are ready to start providing food, but because of your support I am confident of our ability to do so.

Now for a little trivia. Do you know the history of our much welcomed day off called Labor Day? What about the role Oregon had in it? The US Department of Labor says the holiday is “a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers.” According to the DOL website, various municipal ordinances were passed in 1885-86, recognizing workers’ achievements. The idea gained momentum in 1887, when the first state legislation was introduced by New York. On February 21st of that year, however, our own state of Oregon was the first to pass such legislature. Over the next seven years, multiple states followed suit until finally on June 28, 1894, Congress passed an act making the first Monday in September a legal holiday. Enjoy!